Outdoor blinds for a difficult patio

Love your outdoor patio, but hate the leaves that keep on piling up? Enjoying a chill afternoon on the patio, you just wish you could block the sun from your eyes? Freezing on a winter afternoon while trying to finish a barbeque? We had that same problem...

We have an odd patio. On the southern side of our house, with an open end to the west and south, it has its challenges. It is a lovely roomy patio with a high roof and open rafters. The southern wall comprises a built-in braai. It's a lovely area for entertainment. It just has one snag; when you want to enjoy a braai (barbeque) on a Saturday afternoon, you have the sun pouring onto the patio...
As we have cold winters (and anything on the southern side of the house is even colder), we wanted to close in the patio. I like the outdoor feel of the patio, I just wanted a bit more of a weather proofing. One option was to enclose with aluminium and glass. This caused some problems. Our local regulations required that such a change show on the house plans with the municipality. There also seemed to be some odd rule that would require us to remove the glass patio doors already installed. It was never our idea to add the patio to the house, which put us off from that idea.

And then we found another solution; outdoor drop blinds. The blinds are from canvas, with clear pvc windows in. They work with a pulley system and completely close with hooks and zips.
The advantage is, when you would like to feel the fresh air, you roll up the blinds. If you have some stormy weather, you close them tight and end up having a nice cosy room. We chose the add canvas 'curtains' for the windows that give you the option to block out the setting sun when you have your chair out on a Saturday and an icy glass of something at your side.

We chose a 4 blind system - two blinds per side. Both sides comprise a small blind with a mesh window as a door and a large blind with a pvc window. The mesh windows are not great when you have rain - you have to close them. They have an advantage in the summer. With both doors' mesh windows open, you have enough airflow to stop a severe greenhouse effect on the patio. You can always open the door blinds to achieve the same thing, but this way you can still keep leaves and bugs out of the patio.

This allowed us to add the patio as an additional room. It also inspired us to think about getting the patio ceiling improved. The company we worked with had two options; if you wanted you could DIY it, or have them installed. We chose the installation route to free up some time for us.



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